Abstract

This report describes progress on our work on developing and testing the relationships between groupings of vertebrate species ('lifeforms') and structural attributes of the landscape. The work described herein is part of a multi-year project, a portion of which (August 2002 through March 2003) was funded by the Forest Investment Account to Lignum Ltd. For completeness, I have included summaries of our data collection and activities from April 2002 through 31 March 2003 even though much of these activities were not funded by FIA. In this report, I provide a brief background and rationale for this project, which attempts to relate the presence or absence of vertebrate species to specific structural components on the landscape. I describe the process we undertook to develop the proposed lifeform groupings, including a description of the literature review and the criteria that we developed for representative species (i.e., those species, that when considered together represent the structural needs for all species within a given lifeform). The report then goes on to describe the proposed lifeform classification; a detailed rationale for the classification in an appendix to this report. The second part of this report begins with a summary of the additions to our habitat sampling efforts and gives examples of the results of stem mapping all of the 250 sampling plots. I then summarize the vertebrate data that were collected from April through September 2002 using a variety of sampling methods including passive and tape-playback owl surveys, woodpecker playback and point-count surveys, point-count surveys, transect surveys, nest detections and intensive plot searches, small mammal live trapping, infra-red camera stations, bat mist netting, and bat echo-location detection. The final portion of the report summarizes proposed activities for FY 2003-2004: specifically the completion of the collection of vertebrate data and the analysis approach that will be employed to test three specific lifeforms and their representative species.

For further information, please contact Michael Gillingham, University of Northern British Columbia (250 960-5825)